Guest Post: There's No Crying in Elfgames
I consider myself a deeply sensitive and loving person. I mean this in an entirely negative way. Sure in many parts of my life those traits are lovely and positive but when it comes to RPGs, it’s a handicap. I am deeply unsure if the benefits it brings to me as a deeply invested player, are worth the risks it places to the game, and to the comfort of other players and my GM Mister Jenx.
Recently our party of mid level adventurers was clearing out the last of the first floor of Stonehell. We were sweeping rooms easily, and feeling perfectly safe. As long as we didn’t make any profoundly stupid choices there was no way we were at any risk from anything at this level. And then via a series of near catastrophically bad dice rolls, a random encounter with 6 ghouls, had us exceedingly close to a TPK. It was only a failed moral role from two of the ghouls, causing them to run away that saved us.
I had to leave the table after this fight and go take a walk, because I was shaking and nearly in tears from the panic of the situation. If it had been a full TPK I would not have been able to return to the table, because it would have been full blown wracking sobs. That’s not a nice thing to subject your friends to. It’s certainly not an acceptable emotion to display in the middle of your FLGS. I am still feeling deeply shaken a full day later.
I know it’s a game for fun times, but it is not possible for me to play a character and not live in that space. I feel my feelings deeply and struggle to keep them inside. It’s not possible for me to spend months with a character at the table, mine or others, and not love that character like a real person. Watching all these “friends” nearly die was like watching their car slide off into a ditch at high speed.
In the world of Elfgames, and OSR games in particular, this is not an acceptable reaction. It’s disruptive. It’s damaging to the game. It makes you an unreliable player and it frankly feels horrible. As I told Mister Jenx after the game, I am pretty sure a TPK would mean I was done with the game. I would not be able to handle watching these characters I loved and everything they built die. It would be the end of the story for me.
I also know that if I walked away from the game it would probably kill this campaign. I hate that Mister Jenx knowing how I would react makes him second guess how he wants to run his game.
If there is no crying in Elfgames, I am not sure I am the right person to play them, and that really fucking sucks. I have already cried over this silly game. I love my RPG Saturdays so much. However; it is not possible to stop my brain forming intense emotional connections. I would never ask for the game to change to accommodate me. Which leaves me at an impasse. If I quit now I end up in the game in a really negative way. If I stay I risk catastrophically upending the game in a negative way anyways. It feels like both situations put people I love in a hard spot.
I have intense shame about how strongly I feel over this game, and I don’t know how to handle those feelings. I’m not afraid of characters dying, but I am deeply afraid of how I will react to those deaths.
-Mistress Mister Jenx’s Wife